Andreas Grünschloß -- back to my main homepage Last Update: Febr. 2009

Welcome to my subdirectory on UFO-faith

Andreas Grünschloß

UFO-Glaube und "Astronautengötter"

Ein Vortrag im "Kepler Salon" (Linz, Österreich) am 4. Februar 2009

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Andreas Grünschloß

»Ancient Astronaut« Narrations:
A Popular Discourse on Our Religious Past

Online-Article from the Marburg Journal of Religion 11, 2006 (June).

Abstract (English):In their typical explanatory and unveiling gesture, the narrations about Ancient Astronauts have become a popular myth about our religious past. Nowadays, these narrations are often contained in a specific genre of literature on the alternative bookshelves, and a gigantic theme park in Interlaken (“Mystery Park”) is staging some of its basic ideas. This Ancient Astronaut discourse owes much to Swiss-born Erich von Däniken, to be sure, but it can be traced back to the earlier impact of Charles Fort and his iconoclastic books about “damned data” – anomalistic sightings and findings which an ignorant science deliberately seemed to “exclude”. Since then, the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Ancient Times” (Paleo-SETI or PSETI) has become a popular “research” subject, leading not only to various publications in many languages of the world, but also to lay-research organizations and conventions. – The paper tries to identify the major themes, motivations and argumentative strategies in the Ancient Astronauts discourse, as well as its typical oscillation between an ‘alternative science’ and manifest esotericism. With its ‘neo-mythic’ activity (ufological Euhemerism, re-enchantment of heaven, foundation myth for modernity, etc.), it resembles a secular and ‘ufological’ parallel to creationism, displaying a strong belief in the ‘hidden’ truth of the religious traditions. This ‘broken’ myth with its technological explanations of religion has influenced many New Age or ‘esoteric’ strands – especially UFO-religions like the “Raëlian Religion”. The Ancient Astronaut narrations knit together our specific late-modern mode of being-in-the-world with a lay people’s attempt at a new search for the fundamental truth of the myth: The protagonists still “want to believe”, and they find it plausible that a pre-astronautic “truth is somewhere out there”: But in the end, the seemingly self-evident technological possibilities of our age are projected back into a remote past, on the surface of ancient texts and artifacts, – and the result is nothing but a shining mirror of us, and of our time.

Religiöse Dimensionen des UFO-Glaubens

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Andreas Grünschloß

"When we enter into my Father's spacecraft"

Cargoistic hopes and millenarian cosmologies in new religious UFO movements

This is a copy ("mirror-site") of an article published "online" by the Marburg Journal of Religion, Vol.3 / No.2, in November 1998 (click here for a link to the MJR original site in Marburg, Germany). A printed German version is available in the forthcoming DVRG-conference volume, ed. by Dieter Zeller, Religion im Wandel der Kosmologien. Frankfurt/New York 1999.

The article is here presented in an "unframed" version (good for printout!) -- and in a "framed" version (good for online-reading with footnotes):

Appendix -- with additional source-material new!

I have included an "appendix" with retrieved Internet files from the former "Ground Crew Project", as well as two "channelings" from the Heaven's Gate-members (by the "Andromeda Group"). Finally, there is also a German page on the evacuation and landing scenario ("Ashtar Kommando"), as well as the "original" messages from Ashtar to George Van Tassel dating back to the years 1952/53 (by courtesy of "Ministry of Universal Wisdom").

Files from the former Ground Crew Project* (web-posted until fall 1997):

The following three files depict a complex apocalyptic scenario that incorporates various cosmological transformations ("Heaven on Earth") and anthropological changes (healing, ascension), as well as a "mass landing" of Space Aliens and Angels on this earth (cf. the comments in section 3 of my paper).

* Special thanks to Valerie Donner from The Ground Crew [Project] and to Bil El Masri for their kind permission to use and publish these files again!

Two Heaven's Gate "channelings" by the Andromeda Group* (March 1997)

The following two files had originally been posted by the "Andromeda Group" on their Internet-site (removed from the files in 1998). The "channeled" messages supposedly come from the 39 members of Heaven's Gate after their final "discarnating": here, they comment on the "successful transference" onto the Higher Level existence.

Ashtar's "original" messages to the contactee George Van Tassel in 1952--53

Ashtar's early messages are reproduced here by courtesy of the "Ministry of Universal Wisdom", which presents itself to the ufological public as the "official" organization following Van Tassel and the "true" Ashtar.

* Special thanks to the "Ministry of Universal Wisdom" for her kind permission to publish these files again on this site! The "Ministry of Universal Wisdom" can be reached on the Internet at www.georgevantassel.com -- further informations concerning Ashtar can be obtained here